Chapter 7

"We face a crossroad never knowing what's in store. There's an angel on my shoulder, there's a devil at my door." -Midnight Hands by Rise Against

Jughead was honestly surprised by the change simply dying his hair had on the town of Riverdale. He didn't go out much, just in case, but when they went clothes shopping and to the movie, people came right up to talk to Betty and meet him. They crooned over him as Aaron Wilson, as friendly as Betty always was, rather than rude as most were to him when he was just Jughead Jones. It was deeply unsettling to see people who'd scorned him in the past openly embrace him.

Betty told everybody he was a bit shy, to explain his obvious discomfort around…well, pretty much everyone. But, he tried to be a touch more open and charismatic as he imagined Betty's real brother would be.

Which was exhausting and left him baffled and awed by the woman he was currently staying with. He remembered her distinctly in high school, always surrounded by students. Between the people she tutored and her friends, he'd simply thought she needed constant attention; that it was her that couldn't be alone. But, now after seeing the independent and solitary life she led, paired with the constant barrage of greetings she got when they were out in public, it was becoming obvious that line of thought was wrong.

Betty didn't need people. People were just drawn to her. As if she were the magnetic north pole, pulling every compass needle straight to her.

Locking the apartment behind him, he shook his head from thoughts of Betty as he made his way to the stairwell. He took the steps two at a time up one floor and then opening the access door to the roof, leaving a brick to keep it from closing and locking him up there. He unfolded the chair he'd brought with him and sat down, pulling the paperback novel he'd borrowed from Betty's book collection and opening to the page he'd bookmarked.

He'd found the roof access while exploring the apartment building last week. Not many people knew, but Jughead Jones liked heights; perhaps stemming from a childhood spent climbing trees and sleeping in his treehouse and coupled with his brief stint working in the Twilight Drive-In's reel room, high above the cars parked below. Any place that gave him an aerial advantage made him feel safer than anywhere else. It allowed a freedom, a sense of comfort, to see everything and to know there was no plausible way someone could sneak up on him, or drop from the limitless sky above him.

Jughead sighed, stretching out his legs and leaning an elbow along the edge wall that came up about three feet. From here, he could see the parking lot below and even though he knew Betty wouldn't be home for a couple more hours, he'd look up from the book every so often.

He knew she worked Mondays, but he hadn't thought to ask her which shift, only assumed it was an evening shift, so when he woke up this morning to a hastily scrawled note that told him she was working eight to four, he'd found himself just a touch disappointed.

A piece of his blonde hair fell into his eyes and he gazed up at it a few moments, distracted from his book by the golden lock. It was odd to see it when he was used to the darkness of his own hair. It was actually a bit poetic and if he still had his old laptop, he'd write about the way it seemed as if the night Betty entered his life for a second time lit everything in his world up. Including the lightened hair.

Just being around the perky blonde eased him and alleviated the load he'd been carrying on his shoulders for five years. It baffled him how easily he shed it all when she walked into the room.

Especially because it made him all the more protective of her. Like yesterday, when they'd went out for late night ice cream at the Dairy Queen in Greendale and a car back fired, startling him and causing him to drop his ice cream and lunge at Betty. He tackled her to the ground and laid there, his body protecting her as he looked around them for the source of what he'd thought was a gunshot for a solid minute before her soft voice soothed him back to reality, assuring him it was a backfire and not a bullet.

Both of their ice cream cones were on the ground and he'd felt heat rise up his cheeks as he realized he'd ruined everything by overreacting. Betty, of course, told him that his actions surely would have saved them if they really were being fired at.

Jug was extra lucky that they were the only ones at the Dairy Queen and that they weren't in Riverdale, or else he was sure they'd have to explain to someone why Betty's brother was on top of her in the middle of the parking lot.

He shook the blonde lock out of his eye, hating this ruse they had going even though it was working, and tried to focus on the sci fi book he'd found among Betty's other novels. Her collection was as eclectic as her taste in music, with everything from romance, to auto mechanic manuals, to classics. This one, however, stood out to him because of all the creases in the paperback spine, a sign of how well-loved it was. When he read the synopsis, he was surprised that it was a sci fi and a romance, set in a futuristic galaxy system where people flew spaceships from planet to planet.

But, it was the main character that struck Jughead as he read. The man had been through hell and back, covered in scars and an ex- assassin; deadly lethal. He signs up to be a bodyguard for a dancer who's being targeted because her father is a President on one of the human planets.

Of course, it's romance. So, they fall in love. Jughead wants to scoff at that aspect, but the way the lead heroine begins to smash down his walls and love him reminds him a lot of what Betty is doing now.

That scares him more than anything. He's already worried about Jelly Bean, he can't worry about Betty, too.

But, he does. Only a week of being around her almost exclusively is enough for him to know it.

The hours slip by as he takes turn reading and arguing inwardly with himself until his ears pick up the approach of a car. He pulls his phone out and powers it on. He's been leaving it off most of the time, ignoring the texts from his father about rejoining the Serpents, but he's surprised to see new ones now. From Joaquin. Along with missed calls and a voicemail.

Looking over the edge, he sees Betty pull into her usual space and shut off her car. Just as she opens her door, another car turns into the parking lot and parks a few spots away from her. It's not one he recognizes and he pulls the small notepad he keeps in his back pocket out and looks at the list of cars all of Betty's neighbors have.

A maroon car isn't one of them.

Betty is heading to the building and his eyes widen at who gets out of the car. Quickly, he picks up his phone and dials the number of the last missed call. The person stops, pulls their phone out, and answers.

"Jug?" Joaquin's voice is relieved, stopping him from pursuing Betty.

"Joaquin, can't you and FP take a hint? I'm not coming back to the Serpents." He hopes his friend doesn't look up, Joaquin being one of the few who knew his tendency to seek high ground.

He watches the Serpent get back in the car and only now realizes it's his rarely used Pontiac Trans Am since he usually prefers his Honda motorcycle, "Jug, FP might be trying to get you back, but I'm calling you for a different reason. It's Carlos."

Jughead squints up at the sun that's slowly falling to the horizon. "What about the Cleaner?" The nickname is all Jughead will call him, refusing to give a human name to the monster from his childhood. There was nothing human about the man.

He hears Joaquin swallow, "He's coming to Riverdale. For you."

A few curse words escape, though even to his mind it doesn't make sense. "He hates Blossom." He retorts.

Sighing, Joaquin is silent, choosing his words, "I don't know why he would take the job, Jug. But, we need to get you as far from here as possible. Where are you?"

He can't tell Joaquin to leave Betty alone, that would give him away, "I'm in hiding, where else? I can take care of myself." Inside, he amends that 'I' statement with 'Betty', though he doesn't know how long that will last now that the Cleaner was coming for him, and then he adds, "Just do what you can to keep the Cleaner away from Jelly Bean. She's almost done with school, she'll be back in Riverdale in two weeks."

Joaquin's voice is serious, "I'll do whatever I can, Jug." Suddenly, he laughs, "Do you know, I just followed Betty Cooper home from Pop's to see if she was hiding you? I feel like an idiot."

Jughead closed his eyes, sending up a silent prayer, just as footsteps on the gravel roof made him turn around, "Juggie?" Betty called out and he shook his head at her as he quickly spoke to cover up the sound of her voice, "Gotta go, DeSantos. I'll call you when it's safe." He hung up without waiting for a reply and then peered over, counting the breaths until Joaquin finally started the Trans Am and left.

He turned to see Betty covering her mouth, her eyes green spun glass-colored and wide as she gazed at him, "Did he hear me?" She finally asked, in little more than a whisper.

Blowing out a deep breath, Jughead shakes his head, "I don't think so. I don't know." He rubbed his forehead, as though to calm his brain from the latest development in his shitty life. "The Cleaner is coming to Riverdale for me."

Betty's staring at him with a blank look, trying to decipher his words, "The Cleaner?"

He forgot it wasn't a well-known moniker in Riverdale like it was in the Southside, "He's an old boogeyman from when we were kids. His father basically made the Serpents what they are today. At the height of his father's terrorizing, Clifford Blossom gave the police evidence to take the entire gang down. After Antonio, the Cleaner's father, went down in a hail of bullets, the evidence went missing and FP took over. The Cleaner left a few years later."

Betty folded her arms over her chest and digested the story, brows furrowed, "So, the Cleaner is what? A hitman? What makes him any different than the men already after you?"

Jughead lifted the seat of the folding chair, collapsing it and gathering his book as his stomach growled. He glanced up to look at Betty standing there, waiting for an answer, as the wind ruffled the skirt of her mustard yellow uniform. "What makes him different is he's never failed at finding and 'cleaning' up the messes he's hired to handle. What makes him different is that Blossom basically killed his father and yet, he's still doing a job for him. Which means Blossom is desperate and offering enough money for the Cleaner to forget the past and take the job."

"Then that makes this 'Cleaner' equally as desperate, right?" She argued, dropping her arms and stepping too close to him for comfort. He could smell her shampoo and the light perfume she spritzed on herself every morning and it made him want to kiss her all over again as that flame of injustice burned in her jade eyes. "That could give us an advantage. We could beat him somehow and maybe as Blossom's last resort fails, you could be free of all of this."

She was so hopeful, standing there on the roof of her apartment building, the wind blowing her ponytail and stray blonde strands into her face. He wanted to cup her cheek and pull her to him, to show her how she gave him hope even as his brain said her words were too optimistic and that Blossom would never give up. "Betty, I don't think he's going to give up unless I'm dead or he's dead." His words were soft, defeated.

Her light brows pinched delicately together, "No, Juggie, don't say that. We'll figure this out."

"Will we?" He asked, frustrated, "How long will pretending to be your brother work? Did you even know you were followed home from work today?"

Betty's face paled, "What? By who?" She glanced around as though they were going to be attacked and he found himself reaching out to rest his hand on her shoulder.

"Just Joaquin, but if he's singling you out for no reason other than you might have been one of the last people to see me, who's to say the Cleaner won't do it, too?" Fear began to thrum through him as he imagined Joaquin's brother torturing Betty for information and it made him nauseous. "I'm going to drive you to school and work from now on." He decided out loud, nodding his head and daring her to dispute it.

"But, then more people would see you…" She trailed off as he glared at her.

"This is my fault, Betty, the least I can do is make sure you're safe at every turn until I can finish this." Though, he wasn't entirely sure that was going to happen. Perhaps he should go back to the Serpents. There was safety in numbers.

As though she read his mind, she interrupted his thoughts by saying, "Fine then, but where you go, I go. I'm in this with you, Jug. We're sticking together." She glared defiantly at him, equally daring him to argue with her own demands.

He growled just a bit, disliking how stubborn she could be when she set her mind to things, "Fine."

"Good." She retorted, spinning on her heel and heading back down to the apartment. He watched her walk across the roof, shoulders thrown back, spine stiff, that ridiculous skirt swinging with her ponytail. It made him hot and cold at the same time. Wanting her and fearing her. In the span of a ten days, she'd become his sole source of hope in a future he hadn't dared let himself imagine before she came along. Everyone had hollowly told him that this couldn't go on forever, but Betty made him want to end it quickly. If only so he could…take her on a date.

Heat rose up his cheeks as he lifted the folding chair and tucked the paperback book in his back pocket. Slowly, a few feet behind her, he followed. He was pretty sure he'd follow her anywhere at this point.

A/N: Hope everyone is enjoying! Drop me a review!